That Very Place

Mary Ann McGuigan masterfully explores the tender space between connection and estrangement, the cost of words unspoken, and the reverberating legacy of parents who abandon and abuse their children and the children who turn away. McGuigan's prose is unflinching, precise and dreamlike. That Very Place is a keening song, a lament.   -Sonja Livingston, author of Ghostbread

In That Very Place, Mary Ann McGuigan brings to life vivid, unforgettable characters, each facing unexpected upheaval. McGuigan's stories deftly capture life's unpredictability, and the simple truth that how we face our troubles determines who we are. Written with compassion and skill, these stories are filled with honesty, sensitivity, and ultimately hope.  -Dinty W. Moore, author of The Mindful Writer

McGuigan's stories deftly address dangerous and difficult subjects-physical and emotional abuse, parental abandonment, dementia-all without even a whiff of melodrama. Her characters are utterly compelling and so complex that sometimes they are unwittingly complicit in the traumas inflicted on them and on the people they most love and try to protect. The collection is a deeply moving descent into the human heart and all of its conflicts, mysteries, failures, and triumphs.  -David Jauss, author of Glossolalia: New & Selected Stories

That Very Place, features a cast of strong women who privately feel the pain of living. They carry their own regrets, they dream of futures just beyond their grasps, they find grace in the smallest things. To read a Mary Ann McGuigan story is to feel the truth of what one character says toward the end of this collection: "Family's a complicated business." McGuigan has a keen eye for the compromises and accommodations we make when duty collides with yearning. These are glorious stories. -Lee Martin, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist, The Bright Forever